An ANP-based approach for the selection of photovoltaic solar power plant investment projects

In this paper the Analytic Network Process (ANP) is applied to the selection of photovoltaic (PV) solar power projects. These projects follow a long management and execution process from plant site selection to plant start-up. As a consequence, there are many risks of time delays and even of project stoppage.In the case study presented in this paper a top manager of an important Spanish company that operates in the power market has to decide on the best PV project (from four alternative projects) to invest based on risk minimization. The manager identified 50 project execution delay and/or stoppage risks.The influences between the elements of the network (groups of risks and alternatives) were identified and analyzed using the ANP multicriteria decision analysis method. Two different ANP models were used: one hierarchy model (that considers AHP as a particular case of ANP) and one network-based model. The results obtained in each model were compared and analyzed. The main conclusion is that unlike the other models used in the study, the single network model can manage all the information of the real-world problem and thus it is the decision analysis model recommended by the authors. The strengths and weaknesses of ANP as a multicriteria decision analysis tool are also described in the paper.     

Effectiveness of policy instruments for supporting the use of waste wood as a renewable energy resource in the Czech Republic

This paper focuses on an examination of the government's strategy for encouraging the use of wood as a renewable fuel in Czech households. It examines the development of modern combustion technology and its impact on the environment. It describes the estimated requirement for wood by an average household and examines the overall availability of wood as a renewable fuel in the Czech Republic. The paper analyses in detail the policy instruments used by the Czech government to promote the use of this technology. It evaluates the impact of this policy on the users of the technology and practical achievements of the policy measures with respect to the overall objective that is the promotion of generation of renewable energy.     

On developing a prospecting tool for wind industry and policy decision support

This paper presents the rudiments of a Wind Prospecting Tool designed to inform private and public decision makers involved in wind industry development in reducing transaction costs associated with identifying areas of mutual focus within a state. The multiple layer decision support framework has proven to be valuable to industry, state government and local decision makers. Information on wind resources, land availability, potential land costs, potential NIMBYism concerns and economic development potential were integrated to develop a framework for decision support. The paper also highlights implications for decision support research and the role of higher education in providing anticipatory science to enhance private and public choices in economic development.     

Fostering a renewable energy technology industry: An international comparison of wind industry policy support mechanisms

This article examines the importance of national and sub-national policies in supporting the development of successful global wind turbine manufacturing companies. We explore the motivations behind establishing a local wind power industry, and the paths that different countries have taken to develop indigenous large wind turbine manufacturing industries within their borders. This is done through a cross-country comparison of the policy support mechanisms that have been employed to directly and indirectly promote wind technology manufacturing in 12 countries. We find that in many instances there is a clear relationship between a manufacturer's success in its home country market and its eventual success in the global wind power market. Whether new wind turbine manufacturing entrants are able to succeed will likely depend in part on the utilization of their turbines in their own domestic market, which in turn will be influenced by the annual size and stability of that market. Consequently, policies that support a sizable, stable market for wind power, in conjunction with policies that specifically provide incentives for wind power technology to be manufactured locally, are most likely to result in the establishment of an internationally competitive wind industry.     

The portfolio of renewable energy sources for achieving the three E policy goals

Renewable energy is considered by many policy-makers to contribute to achieving at least three major policy goals: the energy goal, the environmental goal, and the economic goal (3E goals). As an innovation-oriented island country with scarce natural resources, Taiwan announced the Sustainable Energy Policy Principles in 2008 that stated that Taiwan’s renewable energy policy should accomplish the 3E goals. Several studies point out that specific renewable energy policy goals lead to specific renewable energy sources and technologies because each type of renewable energy has different features. In order to achieve the renewable energy policy goals, this research aims to examine how different policy goals lead to corresponding renewable energy sources. The relative importance of each goal is evaluated by using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The weight of each policy goal is adjusted separately to construct policy scenarios by the sensitivity analysis. According to the results, non-pumped storage hydropower, wind energy, and solar energy are three sources that could meet the three policy goals at the same time.     

A decision support system for planning biomass-based energy production

Environmental decision support systems (EDSS) are recognized as valuable tools for environmental planning and management. In this paper, a geographic information system (GIS)-based EDSS for the optimal planning of forest biomass use for energy production is presented. A user-friendly interface allows the creation of Scenarios and the running of the developed decision and environmental models. In particular, the optimization model regards decisions over a long-term period (e.g. years) and includes decision variables related to plant locations, conversion processes (pyrolisis, gasification, combustion), harvested biomass. Moreover, different energy products and different definitions of the harvesting and pre-treatment operations are taken into account. The correct management of the forest is considered through specific constraints, security factors, and procedures for parcel selection. The EDSS features and capabilities are described in detail, with specific reference to a case study. Discussion and further research are reported.     

可再生能源经济决策支持工具IRPP的构建及分析案例

由于各地风力和太阳能资源禀赋不同,各项目所选用的发电设备不同,风电和光伏发电项目的发电成本往往难以准确计算。文章介绍了参考RETScreen软件数据库开发的针对单个风力发电项目和光伏发电项目的综合可再生能源决策支持模型IRPP。该模型可以根据不同地区的资源禀赋、不同的设备选型以及所采用的不同技术,计算得到项目年发电量和单位发电成本,并能通过敏感性分析模块分析项目发电成本对于资源禀赋、初始投资的敏感性,以此评价项目的经济性     

Global warming and renewable energy sources for sustainable development in Turkey

Turkey, with its young population and growing energy demand per person, its fast growing urbanization, and its economic development, has been one of the fast growing power markets of the world for the last two decades. It is expected that the demand for electric energy in Turkey will be 300 billion kWh by the year 2010 and 580 billion kWh by the year 2020. Turkey is heavily dependent on expensive imported energy resources that place a big burden on the economy and air pollution is becoming a great environmental concern in the country. In this regard, renewable energy resources appear to be the one of the most efficient and effective solutions for clean and sustainable energy development in Turkey. Turkey's geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of most of these renewable energy sources. This article presents a review of the potential and utilization of the renewable energy sources in Turkey.     

South Korean citizen's preferences on renewable energy support and cooperation policy for North Korea

To solve the continuing North Korean energy problem, the international community has provided, almost continuously, energy aid such as heavy fuel oil. Despite the large amount of energy aid North Korea has received, there is no evidence that the North Korean energy problem has gotten any better. Unless there is an structural energy reconstruction within North Korea, it portends the energy crisis there will only be exacerbated. Thus, North Korean energy solution cannot continue to remain at the level of providing direct aid, but should encompass a sustainable energy system that can answer the North's energy needs in mid- to long-term. Seeking a more permanent solution to solve the North Korean energy crisis, we contend renewable energy (RE) is a suitable option that can be used to build a sustainable energy system that North Korea can self-manage. From the South Korean energy policy perspective, that could be used to provide mid- and long-term energy solution for North Korea and fundamentally solve its energy crisis, this research sought to assess the South Korean residents’ preferences on burdening the cost associated with implementing a South Korean Government (SKG)-led RE support and cooperation policy for the North. We conducted a survey to assess the majority voting trends and approximately 30% of the respondents answered they had “no desire to pay.” The result showed that it would be difficult to fund an energy policy by making the South Korean populace directly shoulder the cost.     

Making renewable energy competitive in India: Reducing financing costs via a government-sponsored hedging facility

In India, a significant barrier to market-competitiveness of renewable energy is a shortage of attractive debt. Domestic debt has high cost, short tenors, and variable interest rates, adding 30% to the cost of renewable energy compared to renewable energy projects elsewhere. Foreign debt is as expensive as domestic debt because it requires costly market-based currency hedging solutions. We investigate a government-sponsored foreign exchange facility as an alternative to reducing hedging costs. Using the geometric Brownian motion (GBM)² as a representative stochastic model of the INR–USD foreign exchange rate, we find that the expected cost of providing a currency hedge via this facility is 3.5 percentage points, 50% lower than market. This leads to an up to 9% reduction in the per unit cost of renewable energy. However, this requires the government to manage the risks related to unexpected currency movements appropriately. One option to manage these risks is via a capital buffer; for the facility to obtain India's sovereign rating, the capital buffer would need to be almost 30% of the underlying loan. Our findings have significant policy implications given that the Indian government can use this facility to make renewable energy more competitive and, therefore, hasten its deployment.     

Potential of hydrogen from oil palm biomass as a source of renewable energy worldwide

Various catastrophes related to extreme weather events such as floods, hurricanes, droughts and heat waves occurring on the Earth in the recent times are definitely a clear warning sign from nature questioning our ability to protect the environment and ultimately the Earth itself. Progressive release of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as CO₂ and CH₄ from development of various energy-intensive industries has ultimately caused human civilization to pay its debt. Realizing the urgency of reducing emissions and yet simultaneously catering to needs of industries, researches and scientists conclude that renewable energy is the perfect candidate to fulfill both parties requirement. Renewable energy provides an effective option for the provision of energy services from the technical point of view. In this context, biomass appears as one important renewable source of energy. Biomass has been a major source of energy in the world until before industrialization when fossil fuels become dominant and researches have proven from time to time its viability for large-scale production. Although there has been some successful industrial-scale production of renewable energy from biomass, generally this industry still faces a lot of challenges including the availability of economically viable technology, sophisticated and sustainable natural resources management, and proper market strategies under competitive energy markets. Amidst these challenges, the development and implementation of suitable policies by the local policy-makers is still the single and most important factor that can determine a successful utilization of renewable energy in a particular country. Ultimately, the race to the end line must begin with the proof of biomass ability to sustain in a long run as a sustainable and reliable source of renewable energy. Thus, the aim of this paper is to present the potential availability of oil palm biomass that can be converted to hydrogen (leading candidate positioned as the energy of the millennium) through gasification reaction in supercritical water, as a source of renewable energy to policy-makers. Oil palm topped the ranking as number 1 fruit crops in terms of production for the year 2007 with 36.90 million tonnes produced or 35.90% of the total edible oil in the world. Its potentiality is further enhanced by the fact that oil constitutes only about 10% of the palm production, while the rest 90% is biomass. With a world oil palm biomass production annually of about 184.6 million tons, the maximum theoretical yield of hydrogen potentially produced by oil palm biomass via this method is 2.16×10¹⁰ kg H₂ year⁻¹ with an energy content of 2.59 EJ year⁻¹, meeting almost 50% of the current worldwide hydrogen demand.     

Effect of wind energy system performance on optimal renewable energy model-an analysis

The Optimal Renewable Energy Model (OREM) has been developed to determine the optimum level of renewable energy sources utilisation in India for the year 2020–21. The model aims at minimising costefficiency ratio and determines the optimum allocation of different renewable energy sources for various end-uses. The extent of social acceptance level, potential limit, demand and reliability will decide the renewable energy distribution pattern and are hence used as constraints in the model. In this paper, the performance and reliability of wind energy system and its effects on OREM model has been analysed. The demonstration windfarm (4 MW) which is situated in Muppandal, a village in the southern part of India, has been selected for the study. The windfarm has 20 wind turbine machines of 200 KW capacity. The average technical availability, real availability and capacity factor have been analysed from 1991 to 1995 and they are found to be 94.1%, 76.4% and 25.5% respectively. The reliability factor of wind energy system is found to be 0.5 at 10,000 hours. The OREM model is analysed considering the above said factors for wind energy system, solar energy system and biomass energy systems. The model selects wind energy for pumping end-use to an extent of 0.3153×10¹⁵ KJ.     

Visualizing energy consumption activities as a tool for making everyday life more sustainable

The need to analyze and understand energy consumption in relation to households’ activity patterns is vital for developing policy means that contribute to an energy efficient life and what people would deem as a “good” everyday life. To do this we need to learn more about how energy use is a part of everyday life; this article contributes to that objective. We use the time-geographic diary approach together with interviews to analyze everyday life as a totality. From household members’ time diaries, we can analyze and learn about when, where, and what energy-related activities occur in a household context and by whom (and in what social context) they are performed. We discuss the importance of relating information and feedback to households’ everyday activities, in order to make it relevant to households. Through our method we discover and visualize activity patterns in a household during a given period. The method is also useful to households as a reflective tool when discussing families’ daily lives in relation to energy consumption. The method gives direct feedback to households and the information is relevant since it emanates from their own reported activities.     

Modeling and analysis of six-phase synchronous generator for stand-alone renewable energy generation

This paper presents a mathematical model of six-phase synchronous generator (SPSG) for analysis of its transient and dynamic behavior for stand-alone renewable energy generation in conjunction with a hydro power plant. In the analytical model, effect of common mutual leakage reactance between the two three-phase winding sets, and the mutual leakage coupling between d- and q-axis of the two stator windings have been considered. Paper also discusses the applicability of SPSG for supplying two individual loads by presenting the results of analytical and experimental study of transient and steady-state behavior under various operating conditions. It is shown that it can be used to supply two independent three-phase loads. While the interaction between the two windings is inevitable and variation of load at one winding set changes the operating conditions at the other winding, the situation is still satisfactory for a wide range of rural resistive loads.     

A regional decision support system for onsite renewable hydrogen production from solar and wind energy sources

Hydrogen technologies driven by renewable energy sources (RES) represent an attractive energy solution to ensure environmental sustainability. In this paper, a decision support system for the hydrogen exploitation is presented, focusing on some specific planning aspects. In particular, the planning aspects regard the selection of locations with high hydrogen production mainly based on the use of solar and wind energy sources. Four modules were considered namely, the evaluation of the wind and solar potentials, the analysis of the hydrogen potential, the development of a regional decision support module and a last module that regards the modelling of a hybrid onsite hydrogen production system. The overall approach was applied to a specific case study in Liguria region, in the north of Italy.     

The recent European biofuel debate as a case study in the politics of renewable energy

This study outlines a number of issues of a political nature, associated with the implementation of renewables, with the primary emphasis on the recent European push for the production of liquid biofuels. In recent years biofuels have been gaining increasing attention as a potential alternative to conventional automotive fuels. This potential has recently become an issue in the European Union (EU) with surplus agricultural land being considered for the production of energy crops. In this paper political issues at stake in the promotion of biofuel crops in the EU are examined. A critical analysis is made of the environmental claims put forward in defence of the promotion of these fuel crops and comparisons made with alternate woody biomass fuels. Contrasts are drawn between this case study and other examples of the implementation of renewables including the development of PV in the US and wind power in the UK. Conclusions are made regarding the impact of the issues thrown up on the future development of renewables.     

Sustainability assessment tool for the decision making in selection of energy system—Bosnian case

In this paper the multi-criteria sustainability assessment of various options of the energy power system of the JP Elektroprivreda of Bosnia and Herzegovina is performed. The rehabilitation of a 110 MW Thermal Power Unit is compared with other options, such as: a thermal power unit with a coal-fueled boiler with combustion in fluidized bed; combined cycle gas turbine plants; hydropower plant, power plants based on solar energy (photovoltaic [PV] systems); wind turbines; and biomass power plants. The assessment methodology comprise a system of stochastic models of uncertainty, enabling decision makers to perform the assessment of various systems, as well as to obtain normalization indexes by using non-numeric (ordinal), non-exact (interval) and non-complete information (NNN-information). Through the analysis of multi-criteria assessment of potential options, the decision-makers are able to evaluate options and select the optimal new power plant capacity.     

The development of a legislative framework for renewable energy and energy conservation

In the absence of any likely international law in the near future to impose comprehensive obligations on nations to take action to promote renewable energy or energy conservation, such action will be required at national level. This paper proposes a generic legislative framework for the control and development of all types of renewable energy and energy conservation. This framework can be adopted, subject to suitable modification according to local conditions and the prevailing legal system, by all interested nations. The framework would replace the piecemeal, ad hoc approach to law reform which characterises past developments in this area.